Plumage-TX edition one Spring 2015

PLUMAGE PLUMAGE--TX

Art Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events

FREE

Premier Spring 2015 Issue

Jose Vives-Atsara

THOMAS ARVID

Unknown Portraits

The Premier Wine

Aldo Luonga

Photo-Realist

BPA Parade of Artists

White House, Olympics, The Hawk

Sidney Sinclair New Work

2015

Compare & Contrast

60th Anniversary McNay Museum

Boerne Professional Artists (BPA) is hosting its 19th Annual “Parade of Artists” on April 11 and 12 of this year.

The 'Parade' is a festive weekend event held each spring which attracts hundreds of art enthusiasts from around the country to visit various art venues in Boerne.

It is a self-guided tour of local galleries, studios and “other venues” principally located along the Hill Country Mile in the Arts & Design and Historic districts of downtown Boerne.

PLUMAGE PLUMAGE--TX

FEATURES Premier Spring 2015 Issue

22 Sidney Sinclair A compare and contrast of new artwork in the DYAD exhibition at J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art

14 Thomas Arvid One night only event with a SIP & Sign event while the artist is in the San Antonio region for one weekend

McNay 60th Anniversary

36

Six decades of success, new exhibitions, pop-up events, and future strategic planning

4/

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

PLUMAGE PLUMAGE--TX

IN THIS ISSUE WHAT’S TRENDING

Unknown portraits of famed San Antonio artist Jose Vives-Atsara,

What’s new in the South Texas, San Antonio, Hill Country art Community—P.15

EVENTS BPA—Parade of Artists, participating venues, artists and listings—P.3

PLUMAGE PLUMAGE--TX Premier Spring 2015 Issue

PUBLISHER

42 IN EVERY ISSUE A Note from the Publisher –P.8 On the Cover—P.12

Gabriel Diego Delgado Contributing Writers Gabriel Diego Delgado Katherine Shevchenko All artwork photography courtesy of J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art Prices are for current artwork, and can change at any time

Contributors— P.13 © 2015 JR Mooney Galleries

Framing of the Month—P.48

305 S. Main Boerne, Texas 78006 830-816-5106 Edited by Gabriel Diego Delgado, Marla Cavin, Katherine , Betty Houston Design by: Gabriel Diego Delgado

A Note from the Publisher

“ITS OUR FIRST EDITION OF PLUMAGE-TX MAGAZINE, AND I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER. IT’S A CHANCE TO SHOW THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES THE EFFORTS OF THE SOUTH TEXAS ART COMMUNITY AND ITS AFFILIATES.” There seems to be a void in the local magazines that spotlight the individual galleries and museums; their openings, social programming and artists. PLUMAGE-TX hopes to use its pages as a vehicle to educate, entertain and enlighten our audience on a variety of topics ranging from reviews, news, artist narratives, interviews, criticism and a cohort of other art related stories. I hope you find this informative and hope you continue to follow the artistic happenings around you in your local neighborhoods.

Sincerely,

Gabriel Diego Delgado, Publisher gabrieldelgadoartstudio@yahoo.com gabrield@jrmooneygalleries.com

8/

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

On the Cover

‘Every Second Saturday of the Month, all the galleries in Boerne, Texas host the Second Saturday Art and Wine Crawl.’

This picture was taken to showcase the exterior of J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art, Boerne; located at 305 S. Main St Boerne, Texas 78006. The Second Saturday events run from 4 pm—8 pm.

Galleries included in this monthly event are: Carriage House Gallery of Artists, COSAS Mexican Folk Art, J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art, Texas Treasures Fine Art Gallery, Texas Treasures Gallery of Art & Artisans.

12 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

Contributors

Gabriel Diego Delgado is the Gallery Director at J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art, Boerne, Texas. He has spent almost a decade in Nonprofit Art Management- working as a Curator of Exhibitions at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston; Project Manager of Research and Development at the Museo Alameda, a Smithsonian Affiliate, San Antonio; Community Outreach/ Communications Director for an art and education nonprofit in Texas and is a working professional artist.

He is a Freelance Curator and Arts Reviewer for several publications. His artwork has been shown in Arco 2012 Madrid, Spain; New York, New York, MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) D.C. as well as numerous galleries and venues throughout the U.S.

Katherine Shevchenko has attended the San Francisco Academy of Art University and the University of Texas at San Antonio where she received her Fine Arts Degree with an emphasis in Painting. Her experience ranges from interning as a curatorial assistant at Southwest School of Art to teaching art to students of all ages. Currently, she is an art consultant/framing designer at the J.R. Mooney Gallery in Boerne. Some of her contributions include writing articles, hosting and editing the J.R. Mooney podcast, "Mooney Makes Sense" and art catalog design. She is also an artist that specializes in painting in oils and other media.

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015,

PLUME-TX Magazine /

13

COVER STORY

‘Sip & with By: Gabriel Diego Delgado Photography courtesy of Thomas Arvid

14 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

Thom

& Sign’

mas

Arvid Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015,

PLUME-TX Magazine /

15

Thomas Arvid

I

An Artistic Sommelier

he Texas Hill Country boasts over 42 wineries with an eclectic mix of palettes and vintages, so it is no wonder why Atlanta based, Photo-Realism Wine painter Thomas Arvid feels right at home when visiting the San Antonio / Hill Country area.

March 13 – 15, 2015 marked the two year return of the internationally acclaimed painter to South Texas region with patrons treated to a VIP private preview dinner at Flemings in the Quarry, a Second Saturday Art & Wine event solo spotlight exhibition of giclee works on canvas that included four originals at J.R. Mooney Galleries in Boerne.

Thomas Arvid is a self-taught artist with a signature angular perspective and compositional completeness- glass, bottle, and corkscrew. Arvid proceeds with deliberate off-the-canvas slants that seem to stunt the elements in a seemingly haphazard tipsy aesthetic-an Arvid tilted room effect.

Larger than life wine bottles, corks, and other bar accoutrements can be seen in his distinguished downward still-life perspectives. Picture-perfect painterly renditions capture the hyperrealism studio set-ups that spotlight the reflections on the wine glass, the shimmer of the liquid and metallic silver finishes. Arvid’s obsessively seamless ovals, curves, and ellipses portray the physicalities of these still-lives better than photographs ever could.

Over the past few years Thomas Arvid has celebrated his first museum exhibition, "Arvid: Reflecting the Good Life," at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art in Marietta, Georgia; in addition to boosting a 5 year waiting list on original commissioned oil paintings. Prices on oils on canvas can reach $120,000 to $150,000. Understandably, he works wherever he can, often doing watercolor sketches and paintings on the plane flights as he travels back and forth from California and other wine sponsored events throughout the country.

16 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015,

PLUME-TX Magazine /

17

A newer original titled: “Polishing the Silver” is a Mixed Media Proof on canvas featuring the Silver Oak label, measuring 31 x 60 inches and valued at $10,000.00. Zach Swangstu, Assistant Sales Manager at Thomas Arvid Fine Art, Inc. explains, “A mixed media proof is a giclee on canvas that Thomas has put his brush to, customizing the work of art and in doing so creating a unique masterpiece.

“Polishing the Silver” is a piece that only exists in a few homes across the country and every one of them are different. It’s considered a mixed media because Thomas is using a giclee to start and applies oil to the piece, using different mediums to complete the overall work of art. As opposed to the $125,000

16 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

collectors are paying for Thom’s original oil on canvas masterpieces, a mixed media proof valued at $10,000 is attractively priced and still holds the long-term value and collectability as an original, perfect for the Arvid collector who is ready to take their first step into the world of originals.”

Thomas Arvid’s artwork is a contemporary throwback and “tip of the hat” to what Arvid passionately explains as an artistic gesture-inspired by the heyday of hand tinting experimentations of Black and White photography.

Deliberate in his composition, gestural mark-making and subtle but striking color highlights, Arvid knows how to allow the viewer to enter into his lyrically liquor-esque world of art. The multi-media aspects of the newly acquired untitled original can be seen in Arvid’s calculated assertion to reveal the pencil and charcoal layers that would ordinarily be covered in the “PhotoRealist” venture of the painting process. Arvid comments on this decision as a way to express and illustrate a “surehandedness” of technique and confidence of artistic quality.

Like an artistic Spartan Warrior, Arvid is in proper form, being sure to formulate interrupted lines, skewed angles, and layered perspectives to harmonize the overall gestalt of the work.

Overall and obsessively obvious in his artistic grandeur, Arvid carefully crafts paintings with intervallic lines and non-conforming compositional esplanades; avenues and visual clues that present the viewer with an ability to feel as though they are joining the artist in his own studio, house or dinner table.

He wants the audience to have a sense they can metaphysically reach into his painting and pick up the glass and drink the wine or rotate the bottle of wine to read the label; all without feeling self-conscious about an underlying “do not touch� taboo in this often misconstrued and misconceived elitist realm of art and wine. Š Gabriel Diego Delgado

COVER STORY

‘B

Beauty to Share’ The Compare and Contrast of two new artworks in the DYAD

By: Katherine Shevchenko Photography courtesy of J.R. Mooney Galleries

“If I can share the beauty and what I feel inside about it to somebody else through my art, then that’s a success.”

-Sidney Sinclair

n anticipation of a new year of art making, Boerne artist Sidney Sinclair needed to define and pinpoint a thematic essence she would channel into her paintings for her “Dyad” Exhibition with fellow artist Bill Scheidt. Known for her traditional landscapes and abstract crosses, she pondered what direction she would take and had an epiphany about merging abstraction elements into her traditional landscapes, which became one of the unifying cruxes of her current body of work. Sinclair clarifies, “I want to see if I can mix them a little bit…have some abstraction within some of the representational pieces. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out until I get in there and try, but I’ve started.”

24 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

The abstract painting Enlightened and the landscape Reaching for the Sky are two paintings that on the surface appear different in so many ways, but they are forged in tandem with emotive elements of color and composition that are used to impart to the viewer the extraordinariness of life.

Enlightened is an abstract cross painting that is a detour from her traditional color palette that she utilized previously, which inhabited a golden realm of celestial yellows and earthy tones with hint of other rainbow hues. This painting enraptures one in the cooler spectrum of deep tones of violet and purple and swaths of intense magenta.

The off center composition of the cross has a presence, with its textural fragments dissipating into the background and creating an ethereal ambiguity.

There are metallic accents of gold that cause the eye to travel around the picture plane, highlighting the defragmentation of this cross as its boundaries become less defined by the textural applications. Regarding the different approaches to execution between abstract and traditional, “The piece takes over and it evolves into its own self and so, that part, you really can’t explain.�

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015,

PLUME-TX Magazine /

125

Reaching for the Sky, a landscape oil painted in early 2015, is in a traditional, representational style that depicts a peaceful embankment of trees and a river that is gently meandering through. In this vertically oriented landscape, the sky is the main player in the composition, its dominating presence limitless, with clouds that are loftily present in the expanse of muted blues and subtle periwinkle. They are levitating delicately, vibrating with warm yellows and subtle accents of rose pinks. At once, one feels kinship with this peaceful drama and is drawn into the painting. Gazing at the clouds one begins to see and feel the similarities between the two paintings.

Unfettered, the clouds are columns of vaporous hues that reach skyward, reflecting the glory of the hidden sun. Within Enlightened, there is an immediacy of an emotional eternity expressed by the dynamic vivid colors that are also omnipresent in the tranquil vista of Reaching for the Sky. There is a diaphanous palette that is painted in a more intuitive manner within the clouds in Sinclair’s sky. These clouds do not reflect the light of an objective reality, but more of the ramifications of the internal psyche; this is where the intersection of the ‘old and new’ has subtly dawned. Even though Sinclair has just begun this new era of experimentation, the core tenet remains the same, despite the genre of the piece:

“Any kind of art that I do, I’m going to be expressing myself, what I see and feel that just surrounds me and hope that I can impart that to someone that’s looking at it.”

Genuinely, Sinclair’s objective aims to communicate the shared human experience, the embodiment of the “specialness of life” no matter what genre she is employing at the moment, and that is what unites her work in spirit. As this journey of experimentation unfolds she is striving to bridge her two distinct styles in an attempt to forge ahead, to connect with her audience her vision of the world as she sees it. ©Katherine Shevchenko,

26 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

“The piece takes over and it evolves into its own self and so, that part, you really can’t explain.”

Sidney Sinclair painting live at J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art, Boerne

Detail: “A New World”, 24” x 36”, $2,400.00

A

Glint

S

parkle

COVER STORY

A

on the Glass and a

e in the Eye

Aldo Luongo and “The Hawk” By: Katherine Shevchenko Photography courtesy of J.R. Mooney Galleries

“He has only 10 or 15 minutes left on the clock of life…but he’s living life to the fullest and going out in style…I want to be like him in my twilight years.”

J

R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne is proud to present three new giclées by Argentinean artist Aldo Luongo. All three feature the white wiry haired character known as “The Hawk,” who was created in tribute to his father, Rafael Luongo’s memory, who passed away sometime in the 1970’s. The artist and his own father had a strained relationship while he was alive, which might have led to some unresolved issues needing to be addressed and hence the necessity of the conception of “The Hawk.”

His father’s most iconic and defining traits were the impetus to breathe life into this character upon the canvas. He is also an envisioning of what his father would have been like had he been able to live out his remaining years into his seventies and beyond.

Over time, “The Hawk” started to epitomize more of an ideal character, a man that is charismatic, jovial and living the life well lived, and eventually becoming Luongo’s own design of how he would like to be. In Luongo’s own words, “he has only 10 or 15 minutes left on the clock of life…but he’s living life to the fullest and going out in style…I want to be like him in my twilight years.”

“The Hawk” serves as a reminder in the artist’s paintings to enjoy all of life’s pleasures, as they are fleeting. The Hawk usually dominates the picture plane and is the focal point of the composition; wherever he is, he is usually displaying a vivacious grin and is rarely without a glass of spirits in his hand. He is living on his own terms and beckoning the viewer to do so as well.

Each reproduction immaculately exhibits Luongo’s masterful use of gestural brushwork and shows why he has been a successful award winning artist for four decades. He is the consummate modern day Post-Impressionist whose career has been punctuated with splendid highlights and notable distinctions. He has had the luminous esteem of being an official artist for the World Cup Games and Olympics for Summer 1988, Summer 1996, and Winter 2002.

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015,

PLUME-TX Magazine /

33

The White House has commissioned him twice to paint wooden eggs for their official Easter Egg Hunt; these creations eventually became part of the Smithsonian Institute’s permanent collection. While his originals may demand upwards to tens of thousands of dollars; these high quality giclée reproductions are an accessible opportunity for the collector to acquire some of Luongo’s artistry. ©Katherine Shevchenko Art Consultant

34 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

COVER STORY

60

th

Anniversary The McNay Museum

By: Gabriel Diego Delgado Photography courtesy of The McNay Museum and Rex Hausemann

“Absolutely phenomenal & a real honor...Growing up going the McNay my mom was a docent there... So not only was the show an honor, but very meaningful for my whole family, friends & fellow artists."

- Rex Hausmann, Artist

2

014 marked the 6oth anniversary of the McNay Museum in San Antonio; giving praise and recognition to founder’s artistic vision. The McNay is one of the more unique and distinguished museums in Texas and the U.S. Billed as the first museum in Texas to be dedicated to modern and contemporary art, the museum’s six decades of collections, public programming and continued acquisitions set the bar for such art world accolades.

38 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

“We have been celebrating our 60th Anniversary since the beginning of 2014, reflective of the official opening of the museum in 1954”, says Dr. William J. Chiego, the museum’s Executive Director.

The McNay chose to kick off their celebrations with 3 major exhibitions: Beyond Love – Robert Indiana, Beauty Reigns: A Baroque Sensibility in Recent Paintings, and Intimate Impressionism. These three exhibitions highlighting the anniversary grasp to encapsulate the full scope of resources afforded to the museum; highlights from the existing collections, public programming, as well as the eccentric visual language, legacy and lineage of Mrs. McNay. More than just the “Love” icon and his Pop Art influences, The McNay was able to feature over 100 artworks by Indiana, rounding out the experience with a 256 page catalog of the exhibition. “It is significant to point out that Robert Indiana has become one of the most important artists in the 1960’s -1970’s decade”, said Chiego.

“Beauty Reigns was co-curated by The McNay Museum’s Chief Curator, Rene Paul Barilleaux and highlighted 13 artists who were working in similar bold, colorful and exotic ways”, Chiego says.

Beauty Reigns: A Baroque Sensibility in Recent Painting at the McNay Museum captures a post-graffiti sensibility mixing visual elements of design, illustration, graphics, and artistic liberties; drawing the viewer into a world of sensory overload.

With a stylized artistic appeal, Barilleaux sought to have the audience leave the museum walls and journey into a new realm, met by stimulus that engages us; reflective of acquainted and non-familiar imagery -- worldly as well as mysterious. He accomplishes this task and gives voice to a new generation of mixed eclecticism that breeds cohesive thought—visually and conceptually.

Intimate Impressionism was organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington and featured over 70 Impressionist and Post-Impressionistic paintings,. Dr. Chiego highlights the fact that the Intimate Impressionism exhibition gave context to their existing collection and Mrs. McNay’s taste in French Impressionism. He boosts that with the success of just this one exhibition added 1,600 new members alone.

A recent spotlight of the museum’s celebrations includes a temporary exhibition of local artists, hand-picked to help in the yearlong festivities. “The museum's finale celebration included an electrifying McNay After Dark party, inspired by Mrs. McNay's legacy of supporting artists in her community aand geared towards the next generation of museum supporters included a two day pop-up exhibition featuring six Texas-based artists: Sylvia Benitez, Elizabeth Carrington, David Anthony Garcia, Allison Gregory, Rex Hausmann, and Leigh Anne Lester”, says Communications Director, Daniela Oliver de Portillo. The Pop-Up exhibition opened on Friday, January 23 and remained on exhibit over the weekend - Saturday, January 24, through Sunday, January 25, 2015.

With the 60th Anniversary in full swing, 2015 also has some surprises in regards to the celebrations, public programming and outreach. From Family Art Play, Free Family Days, Family Gallery Kits, Guided Cellphone Tours, and museum sponsored Art Strolls, the McNay has a variety of family friendly options for those who want to expose their families, babies, toddlers, children and young adults to modern and contemporary art.

“You will see a continued push in a lot of public programs, workshops, and family days. We are constantly engaging our audiences within all age groups”, Chiego says.

“Everything is ongoing; we want to push our attendance of our public programming… we are currently developing areas we have not engaged before; the collection is a living thing and is growing in different ways”.

Future 60th Anniversary festivities include an exhibition of recent gifts and acquisitions exhibition titled: Rodin to Warhol: 60th Anniversary Gifts and Recent Acquisitions, February 18, 2015 to May 17, 2015.

“We have been holding back roughly two years of recent acquisitions from the public, and now is the time to show them”, says Dr. Chiego. This collection of artworks is curated by museum staff: René Paul Barilleaux, William Chiego, Lyle Williams, and Jody Blake.

40 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

“...we are currently developing areas we have not engaged before; the collection is a living thing and is growing in different ways”.

Summer events will include a collage and assemblage exhibition titled: Recycled, Repurposed, Reborn, June 3, 2015 to August 10, 2015; and the fall will feature a touring exhibition of Joan Miró, among other special exhibitions. Extended future calendar exhibitions range from German Contemporary Art to Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland.

Although the 60th Anniversary is a major stepping stone for The McNay Museum, but they have multiple long range plans and strategic long term projects that will guide and lead them into the next 60 years. A twenty year master-plan includes the continued structural and building additions as well as modifications to the museum grounds with an exciting contractual pairing with famed architect, Michael Van Valkenburgh and a high profile Boston based architecture firm. © Gabriel Diego Delgado

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015,

PLUME-TX Magazine /

41

COVER STORY

Forgo

Jose Vives-Atsara

P

otten

Portraits By: Gabriel Diego Delgado Photography courtesy of J.R. Mooney Galleries

B

efore Jose Vives-Atsara’s iconic landscape paintings of Brackenridge Park and the Texas Missions, highly stylized palette knife florals and the animated art residency lecture series at Incarnate Word College, his powerful and political client base drove his international reputation.

Early in his artistic career and living in several countries including Spain, Venezuela, and Mexico City, Jose struggled financially. With a charismatic and colorful personality, and a personal drive to economically care for his growing family, VivesAtsara befriended many. In the varied environments he found himself, he discovered an eclectic array of visual stimulus.

Living in Mexico City, Mexico from 1949-1956, he found inspiration in the people, the culture and the aura of the open air markets. Here, Vives-Atsara worked on a series of portraits in the mid 1950’s. Although he was a traditional based artist, painting landscapes, still-lifes and florals, his representations were seemingly different. The portraits took on a more raw quality, a less refined appeal, giving grace to the constant challenges of a landscape painter to project a portrait painting.

Nonetheless, Vives-Atsara continued to explore this genre and was unrelenting in his need to capture the essence of the people he loved and his pride for this new country he called home. Although not as refined as his Texas based paintings, the portraits give us a chance to see how the shortcomings of an artist yearning to paint people produce such dynamic, almost naĂŻve portraitures.

Although his portraits do not demand the $20,000- $60,000 prices his large landscapes and floral receive, they are a great addition to any collection. They are a stable art market investment and have a continued appreciation value.

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015,

PLUME-TX Magazine /

45

Two paintings by VivesAtsara that are now only beginning to gain buzz in the contemporary social norms of a woman’s right to choose, pay equality, publicly breastfeed and other re-evaluations of gender based norms are epitomized by Mother and Child and Madre Indigena. Vives-Atsara’s motherly depictions are spot-on with a glowing aura of elegance as public feedings, no less controversial now than when these were painted, move within the women’s right to choose and her child rearing choices and actions in the public sector.

Mother and Child is a side profile portrait of a woman with her child. While facing to the left, the woman’s angle directs us down to the bundled child. The slope of the vegetation and agave plants in the background align with the sweeping features of woman’s body, exposing flesh as she nurses her young.

We are directed along a visual route down through the pale blue coverings of the baby’s hood and jacket, pausing at the closed eyes. We can sense the calming of the innocent child during the sacred feeding and natural nourishment.

Madre Indigena is a celebration of motherhood, but with an opposite compositional angle to Mother and Child. A woman and her baby share an embrace that illustrates the seemingly mundane daily routines of two individuals, caught up in their own symbiotic relationship, locked together in a grasp of life and death importance.

46 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015

In the painting we see and acknowledge one needing the other for life, for substance - a nurturing of spiritual and metaphysical essence. We, as observers, see the endearing grin of the mother looking down to the child, reminiscent of a religious experience. Vives-Atsara’s setting, backdrop and environment in this painting speak to the proletariat, the worker in the field, the peasant and the mercado worker; a public display of endearment that meets with mixed reactions depending on the viewing geography.

While both can lay the groundwork for discussion, each maintains and depicts the underlying womanly obligations, a chastisable action by some, but painted with undeterred nobility.

Take time to appreciate Jose Vives-Atsara’s portrait series with an open mind. An artist’s desire to create knows no boundaries. When he found inspiration in what he saw, Vives-Atsara took that to the studio. Enchanted with the people and their ethnic diversity, he painted broad noses, thick hair and utilitarian garb, and strove to portray the social hierarchy. In his paintings, we see aspects of indigenous facial characteristics of these nameless people, but also familiar traits of our own Texas cultures. Art is universal, and in these rare portraits, Jose Vives-Atsara gives us a chance to see that. © Gabriel Diego Delgado

FRAM

MING

Framing of the Month

A client of International Firearms engraver, Weldon Lister III brought in this sepia intaglio print to get framed. Our staff at J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne helped the client choose a rustic wood frame, while floating the print on linen. The decision to spotlight the deckle edges of the print paper gave it a nice classic look.

Lister is recognized as one of the top 44 living engravers by C. Roger Bleile in American Engravers – The 21st Century. A third generation engraver, Weldon has been spotlighted in publications ranging from Texas Monthly to Gun Digest. His engravings on timeless firearms have gained him an expected notoriety. Using techniques ranging from hand and chisel to Lost Wax castings, Lister’s signature aesthetic borders on ultrabaroque; mixing in concise art deco embellishments. Lister is a member of the Firearms Engravers Guild of America and the American Pistolsmiths Guild.

50 /

PLUME-TX Magazine

Reviews/ Commentary/ Exhibitions/ News/ Events, Spring 2015